HERSHEY, Pa., April 6 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers said education can reduce by nearly half the number of babies receiving injuries from being violently shaken.
Researchers at Penn State University's College of Medicine said the findings are from a program conducted between December 1998 and May 2004, in which nurses gave all new parents in an eight-county region of Pennsylvania a pamphlet explaining the injuries that could be caused by shaking their babies. They also showed parents a short video, talked with them and had them sign a commitment form saying they had received the information.
The nurses paid special attention to the father or father-figure, because previous research has shown the male is more likely to shake and hurt the baby.
They found the number of head injuries due to shaking dropped 47 percent compared with cases in the eight counties over the preceding five years and to the state as a whole.
